Thurs Sept 12 - Moose Factory - Canadian Safari

 It was a cool overcast morning when we got into Billy's boat to travel to Moose Factory.  There was a bit of a wind.  We arrived at the dock in Moose Factory and headed to a nature trail.  This was a boreal forest.  There was plenty of birdsong.  One memorable sighting was a juvenile White winged Crossbill being fed by its parents.  There was a small flock of them.  Henrique explained that WWCR breed any month of the year as long as there is a good food source.  There are plenty of pine cones here.

We continued and had a quick view of a Canada Jay.  For the first time I saw Nuthatch (Red) for this trip.  And we had Dark eyed Juncos and Henrique heard a Boreal Chickadee in with a group of Black capped Chickadees.  Good views were had.  From here we traveled by truck to Moose Factory Heritage building to view some crafts and more history about Moose Factory.  There were many black and white photos.  From here we traveled by truck to Billy's home and his wife Peggy who made the super delicious Moose Stew and bannock for our lunch today.  They have a Tipi in their backyard that they use for family gatherings.  We had a super lunch.  Thank you Peggy.  Then we walked to the river to bird a bit.  It was quiet.  Then we loaded up into Peggy's truck including 5 or 6 on the back of the pickup truck to visit the Hudson's Bay Staff House which tells about the history of HBay and Moose Factory.  This was an intersting museum with many photos and objects.  We were particularly moved by the prothesis exhibits.  From here we walked over to a cemetary and we were surprised to find some Eastern Bluebirds in the cemetary.  We often see Bluebirds in St George's Cemetary outside Almonte.  

From here we went to the town dump.  A bunch of us sat in the back of the pickup truck.  Peggy drove the truck.  There were lots of Herring Gulls at the dump along with 7 Black Bears chowing down on garbage.  These were glossy, well fed huge bears.  No mangey bears here.  They were the biggest bears some of us have seen.  Out of the seven there were some smaller bear cubs.  We took photos and none of the bears approached us, they were too busy eating.   A super Canadian Safari!

It was the end of our trip to Moose Factory.  We went back to another dock to travel back to Moosonee.  It was a very busy dock with many people pulling large suitcases and planning to take the boat taxi to Moosonee and then take the train at 5 pm.  It was a lot of comings and goings.  Billy showed up and we got on the boat.  The water was pretty calm in the sheltered waters but once we got on the open water it got really rough.  Billy slowed down the boat and we made it back to Moosonee no problem.  There was a lot of boat traffic on the river at that time of day.  

Supper was leftovers and we all ate very well.  We did the bird list and Martin gave us the plan for tomorrow.  Peter checked the Aurora site for Northern Lights and we might have a chance tonight to see the auroras.  I walked down around 9:45 pm and saw Peter returning from the river with his equipment.  At first this meant that there were no Northern Lights.  But it was the opposite.  Peter was coming back to get another lense for his camera so he could photograph the Northern Lights.  I went back and got my camera and we walked down to the river and looked up.  Northern Lights played across the sky.  We took many photos and stayed a while.  Two ladies from our group also showed up and we all marveled at the skies.  The moon was waxing gibbous and was orange in the sky and huge.  It was all awesome.  We stayed for over an hour and took many photos.  A super end to the day!